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I know this is about the firing of a reddit mod, but I can't shake of the feeling that the people behind this petition care more about the banning of hateful su

I know this is about the firing of a reddit mod, but I can't shake of the feeling that the people behind this petition care more about the banning of hateful subs. This is a retribution for them. I really feel disappointed when people think free speech is more important than anything. Yes, it is important, but we defend it for a reason. Because it protects the weak. But when I see people defending it so they can harass or otherwise spew hate speech about minorities, I wonder where did we do wrong. Maybe, just maybe, we treated it like a dogma and then it backfired? It should've been a means to an end, not the other way.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Klinky 11y ago
The problem was that /r/fatpeoplehate was banned while other "vile" subreddits continued to exist. Censorship is weird. In the US we can't show breasts on TV, but someone can get their head blown off. On reddit, you can't hate on fat people, but you can watch someone's face get ripped off in a car accident. You can also still hate on black people or deny the holocaust. I think sites have the right to censor what they want, but reddit has to tread carefully when dealing with it. The free organic growth it enjoys can also turn into organic backlash. The massive energy exerted into managing and creating the content that fuels reddit can also go in the opposite direction, with reddit being the platform of it's own destruction. reddit has a history of problems, from technical stability issues in the past, to now more managerial/executive issues. reddit needed help and a guiding vision, but Ellen Pao has the reputation of being a professional griefer, and was probably the worst fit possible to fix reddit's problems. Removing Pao seems like a difficult proposition given the lawsuit at her previous employer. The firing of the only admin who was proactive with the community seems to indicate more tone deaf action on management's part. This is probably the biggest crisis reddit has ever faced, and it could be it's demise. The snowball seems to keep getting bigger.
- hueving 11y ago
  To be clear, it wasn't banned because of attacks on fat people, it was banned because it was attacking specific fat people.
  - baby 11y ago
    No, it was banned because it was bullying people, doxxing, brigades on other subs, etc...
  - technofiend 11y ago
    I think the issue was the activities escaped the subreddit and surfaced other places. Say you disagree with the Healthy at any Size crowd in the subreddit? Fine. Start harassing them on their Facebook pages, tumblers, etc and it was deemed (in my humble opinion) going too far. The irony is not lost on me that to make Reddit a "safe place" for all some ended up booted off the site for activities outside the site itself. Same as the fact that the primary object of fph's disdain got far more attention and perhaps even sympathy than she would have otherwise.
    - baby 11y ago
      r/jailbait got a lot of sympathy also when it got banned (although in its defense it was not harassing anyone)
  - Klinky 11y ago
    While reddit stated they weren't banning an idea, only the subreddit, alternative subreddits that popped up on the same topic were also shutdown. The belief is that the idea leads to negative unacceptable behavior, and thus they have actually banned the idea, not just the subreddit. A more community minded approach may have been better, along with threats of working with law enforcement on matters of real-world harassment. This segues right into the next issue of poor community management and oversight. Poor tools & poor admin oversight of subreddits until they are too big to handle in a graceful fashion. Instead of working on these issues, they fired more staff. All of these actions may have actually been completely justifiable, but were communicated and implemented very poorly.
- eridius 11y ago
  > The problem was that /r/fatpeoplehate was banned while other "vile" subreddits continued to exist. But that's not a problem at all. Anyone who is making that claim either seriously misunderstands why those subreddits got banned, or is being disingenuous. There are plenty of vile subreddits that I wish didn't exist. But as long as they're not breaking the law or reddit's rules (the relevant one in this case being about harassment), then they're allowed to exist. r/fatpeoplehate and the other banned subs broke the rules by harassing people, and by having their moderators refuse to do anything about it. That's why they got banned. It had nothing to do with the content being objectionable and everything to do with the behavior of the subreddit.
tzs 11y ago
> I know this is about the firing of a reddit mod, but I can't shake of the feeling that the people behind this petition care more about the banning of hateful subs. This is a retribution for them. Most people signing seem to be doing so because of the firing (or firings [1]). We can infer this from how slowly the signup count was growing before the firings, and how fast it is growing now. Edit: it was at 10000 three weeks ago, and 14000 a day or two ago. It was over 100000 9 hours ago, and now is at 125000. [1] Also fired was the women who ran the Reddit gifts and secret santa programs, which were very popular.
donw 11y ago
This is a response to you, and not a commentary on what's happening at Reddit right now. The ACLU would disagree. One of their landmark cases involved defending the constitutional right of a group of Nazis to hold a peaceful demonstration in a town populated with more than a small number of Holocaust survivors. I am a Jew, and I support the ACLU defending the rights of people that hate me beyond reason. Not because I agree with their point of view. But because I believe that everybody deserves the same rights, no matter how much of an asshole they may be. We, or at least Americans, care deeply about free speech, not because it protects the weak, but because it is a fundamental human right.
- fuzzywalrus 11y ago
  Agreed and to preface, not a comment on Reddit: Usually the defense of free speech means defending the less worthy of using it for those times when for when its truly worthy, there's just really no middle ground.
  - studentrob 11y ago
    Your sentence is a bit muddled. I'm not sure if you're in agreement with the above comment or not. You say "there's no middle ground" but you are also saying people usually only defend free speech at certain "times ... when its truly worthy". There certainly is no middle ground. You must defend it all the time or defend it not at all, because once you lose free speech you will not get it back without a fight
    - nekopa 11y ago
      I read the sentence to mean that you have to defend free speech for the less worthy so that free speech is still there for the truly worthy. Seems like he is in agreement with you.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > We, or at least Americans, care deeply about free speech, not because it protects the weak, but because it is a fundamental human right. Thanks for recognising that this level of free speech is pretty much an American cultural thing and that most of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. English mewspapers talk about how important it is for them to keep their freedoms when they operate under, to Americans, restrictive laws. And "we're a bit worried about the unpleasant parts of the Internet" is something baked in from the early 90s when commercial providers of Internet started offering services. See the various swearing filters; or Compuserve carrying but delisting a range of porn Usenet newsgroups. http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/Compuserve http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/Compuserve https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/hsv.general/5BiIjbHDLL0 https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/hsv.general/5BiIjb... http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/ils310/msg00266.html http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/ils310/msg00266.html And see also the AUPs of some ISPs that provide restrictions on top of US law about not harassing users (in some but not all AUPs) or not sending unsolicited bulk email (in most AUPs, even before there were laws about spam). A blog post about the early AUPs of different services would possibly be useful. Your mention of fundamental human rights is a bit odd; the US (for constitutional reasons) has not fully signed up to the UDHR. The freedom of speech bit is article 19. > Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. But the US trashes articles 3, 4 (arguably), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16(3)(arguably), 17(2). I'd argue that being allowed to write about the fact a police officer took your house and there's no real recourse for you to get it back is less important than the officer just not taking it in the first place.
smsm42 11y ago
> Because it protects the weak. Nope. Because it protects everybody, regardless of how the state or the Powers That Be are classifying you - weak, strong, black, white, conservative, liberal, poor, rich, male, female, or neither, or both, any category and any classification - you get free speech. Everybody gets free speech. Once we start choosing - this guy deserves free speech, because he's "weak", but this guy is better shut up, because he's "strong" enough, it's no free speech, it's privilege of speaking for whoever you like. Now, many people can't handle freedom - freedom means people can do things that you don't like. I mean, really don't like, I mean, things, that positively infuriate you so much you see a wall of red. I can appreciate that, and I can understand - not condone, not agree with, but understand - people that don't want free speech and other freedoms to be around for that reason. It's hard sometimes. But please - if you don't support free speech, don't call whatever privilege structure for avoiding crimespeech and crimethink - "free speech". P.S. I hope everybody reading this is smart enough so that the above does not need a disclaimer "within the bounds of not using speech to commit actual crimes, such as ordering a hit on somebody", etc. But just in case it's not so, yeah, I know about that.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Totally agree. Looks like this headline has been removed from the front page, despite being only 2 hours old and having a lot of votes. It's marked as "DEAD" on hckernews, whatever that means: https://archive.is/8RxuV https://archive.is/8RxuV I can only imagine reddit investors (PG?) do not appreciate the heavy defense of free speech making its way into HN forums
  - DanBC 11y ago
    The mods keep saying that they do not do stuff like that. If you search for user dang (who is a mod) you can probably find him saying that. When a post is killed or dropped off the front page it is normally as a result of user flagging. I'm not a mod so I don't know, but I suspect that's what happened here. Many users flagged the article; it drops rank. If anything HN works to avoid censoring these topics: mods often unban / unkill these types of articles. (Again, a search of dang's comments will probably find examples.)
mc32 11y ago
Expression is one of those things where either you have freedom, or you don't have it. You can't compromise it. There are a few things that are not allowed because of the possibility of immediate bodily danger. But otherwise once we start veering into accepted and non-accepted speech/expression, we're getting into subjective territory (who feels or gets insulted by what -the pope, the fairy god mother, your doctor). But none of that matters much in this case where the ultimate arbiter is the company itself. We can argue all we want what should and should not be, whether realistically or ideally speaking, in the end, it's what the company allows. And if they want to ban the word 'water' well, they can do it and it's perfectly legal. That's not to say people should just go on and accept it. No, they can protest online or whatever, maybe build their own community -where they can one day establish their own mores and ban the word ice instead. That said, a civil community is much more pleasant, though somewhat sterile, to participate in. That's to say, I prefer engaging in cites where people have strong opinions but have a modicum of comportment --however, at times, I can feel they don't reflect daily life where insults are hurled unexpectedly, so, from that standpoint, it's a bit sterile and stiff. Anyhow, It'll be interesting to see how this works out.
studentrob 11y ago
I think you're generalizing about people's reasons for supporting free speech. I, for example, don't defend free speech so I can harass people. I never posted or contributed to FPH, or any other hate group. Like you, I don't believe in it. But I believe in free speech enough to tolerate those small groups. I believe WBC has a right to protest, as do other hate groups, because I firmly believe that their disgusting views, when expressed openly, weaken their cause. It's worked well for America, and the government sets an example for its people and businesses. That said, reddit can do what it wants. I think people do use each new event as a platform for replacing who they see as the root cause, the CEO. However I can't shake the feeling that the issue is deeper. As alluded to in these comments about reddit acting like children, large communities are very difficult to satisfy. Protests will happen now and then, regardless of whether you as a country (China vs. USA) or company support free speech or not. So you can embrace that, expect it and deal with it, or try to make everything perfect. I think Alex and Ellen are trying really hard to make everyone happy. I imagine it's stressful for them and I personally don't feel that's the right approach for reddit. Getting rid of illegal things like jailbait was a good idea, and consistent with American values.
albinofrenchy 11y ago
> Yes, it is important, but we defend it for a reason. Because it protects the weak. Is that why we defend it? I strongly disagree with this idea. There is a lot of distasteful speech that I think we should defend, and much of it doesn't concern disenfranchised or weak groups. I find it hard to articulate an exact reason for defending free speech. But a large part of it to me is that we grant an _enormous_ amount of power to whoever we let define what ideas and speech is allowed, and disallowed. In an ideal world, you would let free speech be the absolute rule; since truly distasteful things would be seen as such and just be noise. Pragmatically though, free speech often has real consequences, and in some case real, actual victims and that must be balanced. But understand that if you defend free speech in any venue, you have to accept some level of speech you find distasteful. I think you get to draw the line at showing actual harm or damage to other people; and that harm needs to be more than "It hurt my feelings".
tomp 11y ago
Fat people are not a minority. At least not in the US.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  Americans are one of the few groups that it is politically correct to hate.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Klinky 11y ago

The problem was that /r/fatpeoplehate was banned while other "vile" subreddits continued to exist. Censorship is weird. In the US we can't show breasts on TV, but someone can get their head blown off. On reddit, you can't hate on fat people, but you can watch someone's face get ripped off in a car accident. You can also still hate on black people or deny the holocaust. I think sites have the right to censor what they want, but reddit has to tread carefully when dealing with it. The free organic growth it enjoys can also turn into organic backlash. The massive energy exerted into managing and creating the content that fuels reddit can also go in the opposite direction, with reddit being the platform of it's own destruction. reddit has a history of problems, from technical stability issues in the past, to now more managerial/executive issues. reddit needed help and a guiding vision, but Ellen Pao has the reputation of being a professional griefer, and was probably the worst fit possible to fix reddit's problems. Removing Pao seems like a difficult proposition given the lawsuit at her previous employer. The firing of the only admin who was proactive with the community seems to indicate more tone deaf action on management's part. This is probably the biggest crisis reddit has ever faced, and it could be it's demise. The snowball seems to keep getting bigger.

hueving 11y ago
To be clear, it wasn't banned because of attacks on fat people, it was banned because it was attacking specific fat people.
- baby 11y ago
  No, it was banned because it was bullying people, doxxing, brigades on other subs, etc...
- technofiend 11y ago
  I think the issue was the activities escaped the subreddit and surfaced other places. Say you disagree with the Healthy at any Size crowd in the subreddit? Fine. Start harassing them on their Facebook pages, tumblers, etc and it was deemed (in my humble opinion) going too far. The irony is not lost on me that to make Reddit a "safe place" for all some ended up booted off the site for activities outside the site itself. Same as the fact that the primary object of fph's disdain got far more attention and perhaps even sympathy than she would have otherwise.
  - baby 11y ago
    r/jailbait got a lot of sympathy also when it got banned (although in its defense it was not harassing anyone)
- Klinky 11y ago
  While reddit stated they weren't banning an idea, only the subreddit, alternative subreddits that popped up on the same topic were also shutdown. The belief is that the idea leads to negative unacceptable behavior, and thus they have actually banned the idea, not just the subreddit. A more community minded approach may have been better, along with threats of working with law enforcement on matters of real-world harassment. This segues right into the next issue of poor community management and oversight. Poor tools & poor admin oversight of subreddits until they are too big to handle in a graceful fashion. Instead of working on these issues, they fired more staff. All of these actions may have actually been completely justifiable, but were communicated and implemented very poorly.
eridius 11y ago
> The problem was that /r/fatpeoplehate was banned while other "vile" subreddits continued to exist. But that's not a problem at all. Anyone who is making that claim either seriously misunderstands why those subreddits got banned, or is being disingenuous. There are plenty of vile subreddits that I wish didn't exist. But as long as they're not breaking the law or reddit's rules (the relevant one in this case being about harassment), then they're allowed to exist. r/fatpeoplehate and the other banned subs broke the rules by harassing people, and by having their moderators refuse to do anything about it. That's why they got banned. It had nothing to do with the content being objectionable and everything to do with the behavior of the subreddit.

tzs 11y ago

> I know this is about the firing of a reddit mod, but I can't shake of the feeling that the people behind this petition care more about the banning of hateful subs. This is a retribution for them. Most people signing seem to be doing so because of the firing (or firings [1]). We can infer this from how slowly the signup count was growing before the firings, and how fast it is growing now. Edit: it was at 10000 three weeks ago, and 14000 a day or two ago. It was over 100000 9 hours ago, and now is at 125000. [1] Also fired was the women who ran the Reddit gifts and secret santa programs, which were very popular.

donw 11y ago

This is a response to you, and not a commentary on what's happening at Reddit right now. The ACLU would disagree. One of their landmark cases involved defending the constitutional right of a group of Nazis to hold a peaceful demonstration in a town populated with more than a small number of Holocaust survivors. I am a Jew, and I support the ACLU defending the rights of people that hate me beyond reason. Not because I agree with their point of view. But because I believe that everybody deserves the same rights, no matter how much of an asshole they may be. We, or at least Americans, care deeply about free speech, not because it protects the weak, but because it is a fundamental human right.

fuzzywalrus 11y ago
Agreed and to preface, not a comment on Reddit: Usually the defense of free speech means defending the less worthy of using it for those times when for when its truly worthy, there's just really no middle ground.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Your sentence is a bit muddled. I'm not sure if you're in agreement with the above comment or not. You say "there's no middle ground" but you are also saying people usually only defend free speech at certain "times ... when its truly worthy". There certainly is no middle ground. You must defend it all the time or defend it not at all, because once you lose free speech you will not get it back without a fight
  - nekopa 11y ago
    I read the sentence to mean that you have to defend free speech for the less worthy so that free speech is still there for the truly worthy. Seems like he is in agreement with you.
DanBC 11y ago
> We, or at least Americans, care deeply about free speech, not because it protects the weak, but because it is a fundamental human right. Thanks for recognising that this level of free speech is pretty much an American cultural thing and that most of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. English mewspapers talk about how important it is for them to keep their freedoms when they operate under, to Americans, restrictive laws. And "we're a bit worried about the unpleasant parts of the Internet" is something baked in from the early 90s when commercial providers of Internet started offering services. See the various swearing filters; or Compuserve carrying but delisting a range of porn Usenet newsgroups. http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/Compuserve http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/Compuserve https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/hsv.general/5BiIjbHDLL0 https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/hsv.general/5BiIjb... http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/ils310/msg00266.html http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/ils310/msg00266.html And see also the AUPs of some ISPs that provide restrictions on top of US law about not harassing users (in some but not all AUPs) or not sending unsolicited bulk email (in most AUPs, even before there were laws about spam). A blog post about the early AUPs of different services would possibly be useful. Your mention of fundamental human rights is a bit odd; the US (for constitutional reasons) has not fully signed up to the UDHR. The freedom of speech bit is article 19. > Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. But the US trashes articles 3, 4 (arguably), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16(3)(arguably), 17(2). I'd argue that being allowed to write about the fact a police officer took your house and there's no real recourse for you to get it back is less important than the officer just not taking it in the first place.

smsm42 11y ago

> Because it protects the weak. Nope. Because it protects everybody, regardless of how the state or the Powers That Be are classifying you - weak, strong, black, white, conservative, liberal, poor, rich, male, female, or neither, or both, any category and any classification - you get free speech. Everybody gets free speech. Once we start choosing - this guy deserves free speech, because he's "weak", but this guy is better shut up, because he's "strong" enough, it's no free speech, it's privilege of speaking for whoever you like. Now, many people can't handle freedom - freedom means people can do things that you don't like. I mean, really don't like, I mean, things, that positively infuriate you so much you see a wall of red. I can appreciate that, and I can understand - not condone, not agree with, but understand - people that don't want free speech and other freedoms to be around for that reason. It's hard sometimes. But please - if you don't support free speech, don't call whatever privilege structure for avoiding crimespeech and crimethink - "free speech". P.S. I hope everybody reading this is smart enough so that the above does not need a disclaimer "within the bounds of not using speech to commit actual crimes, such as ordering a hit on somebody", etc. But just in case it's not so, yeah, I know about that.

studentrob 11y ago
Totally agree. Looks like this headline has been removed from the front page, despite being only 2 hours old and having a lot of votes. It's marked as "DEAD" on hckernews, whatever that means: https://archive.is/8RxuV https://archive.is/8RxuV I can only imagine reddit investors (PG?) do not appreciate the heavy defense of free speech making its way into HN forums
- DanBC 11y ago
  The mods keep saying that they do not do stuff like that. If you search for user dang (who is a mod) you can probably find him saying that. When a post is killed or dropped off the front page it is normally as a result of user flagging. I'm not a mod so I don't know, but I suspect that's what happened here. Many users flagged the article; it drops rank. If anything HN works to avoid censoring these topics: mods often unban / unkill these types of articles. (Again, a search of dang's comments will probably find examples.)

mc32 11y ago

Expression is one of those things where either you have freedom, or you don't have it. You can't compromise it. There are a few things that are not allowed because of the possibility of immediate bodily danger. But otherwise once we start veering into accepted and non-accepted speech/expression, we're getting into subjective territory (who feels or gets insulted by what -the pope, the fairy god mother, your doctor). But none of that matters much in this case where the ultimate arbiter is the company itself. We can argue all we want what should and should not be, whether realistically or ideally speaking, in the end, it's what the company allows. And if they want to ban the word 'water' well, they can do it and it's perfectly legal. That's not to say people should just go on and accept it. No, they can protest online or whatever, maybe build their own community -where they can one day establish their own mores and ban the word ice instead. That said, a civil community is much more pleasant, though somewhat sterile, to participate in. That's to say, I prefer engaging in cites where people have strong opinions but have a modicum of comportment --however, at times, I can feel they don't reflect daily life where insults are hurled unexpectedly, so, from that standpoint, it's a bit sterile and stiff. Anyhow, It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

studentrob 11y ago

I think you're generalizing about people's reasons for supporting free speech. I, for example, don't defend free speech so I can harass people. I never posted or contributed to FPH, or any other hate group. Like you, I don't believe in it. But I believe in free speech enough to tolerate those small groups. I believe WBC has a right to protest, as do other hate groups, because I firmly believe that their disgusting views, when expressed openly, weaken their cause. It's worked well for America, and the government sets an example for its people and businesses. That said, reddit can do what it wants. I think people do use each new event as a platform for replacing who they see as the root cause, the CEO. However I can't shake the feeling that the issue is deeper. As alluded to in these comments about reddit acting like children, large communities are very difficult to satisfy. Protests will happen now and then, regardless of whether you as a country (China vs. USA) or company support free speech or not. So you can embrace that, expect it and deal with it, or try to make everything perfect. I think Alex and Ellen are trying really hard to make everyone happy. I imagine it's stressful for them and I personally don't feel that's the right approach for reddit. Getting rid of illegal things like jailbait was a good idea, and consistent with American values.

albinofrenchy 11y ago

> Yes, it is important, but we defend it for a reason. Because it protects the weak. Is that why we defend it? I strongly disagree with this idea. There is a lot of distasteful speech that I think we should defend, and much of it doesn't concern disenfranchised or weak groups. I find it hard to articulate an exact reason for defending free speech. But a large part of it to me is that we grant an _enormous_ amount of power to whoever we let define what ideas and speech is allowed, and disallowed. In an ideal world, you would let free speech be the absolute rule; since truly distasteful things would be seen as such and just be noise. Pragmatically though, free speech often has real consequences, and in some case real, actual victims and that must be balanced. But understand that if you defend free speech in any venue, you have to accept some level of speech you find distasteful. I think you get to draw the line at showing actual harm or damage to other people; and that harm needs to be more than "It hurt my feelings".

tomp 11y ago

Fat people are not a minority. At least not in the US.

happyscrappy 11y ago
Americans are one of the few groups that it is politically correct to hate.